This is an Early Access Review and as such opinions and scores are based solely on the state of the game at the time of review and subject to change as development progresses leading up to final release.
KIllsquad was developed and published by Novaroma, a Spanish game development company which also has an award-winning augmented reality title named “InviZimals” brings us their vision of the future of action-role playing games (ARPG) with their latest title now on Steam Early Access.
I jumped into Killsquad with another player with literally ZERO idea on what it was about, the genre or anything other than the name of the game. The first thing we learned? Killsquad does not hold your hand whatsoever. From the minute you start playing you pretty much have to figure it out yourself; everything from figuring out what “Vector” meant to how you invited friends to play with each other. It was hectic and a little flabbergasting considering how many games now a days want to make sure your first experience is as easy as possible so that you stick around. Regardless, we persevered, we figured out how to play together and understood that “Vector” is basically your gear score/power, the higher your Vector, the better item quality you potentially had.
Once you jump into Killsquad you are greeted by your choice of four different heroes. I use that term loosely because they are not your typical caped crusader, goodie two shoes archetype. I’m pretty sure one is a male zombie nurse, which I loved because I was using the sword wielding “Nun” named Cass and I jumped into mobs of enemies a lot. There is no story element to Killsquad, you take on what are called Contracts that take you and your party, if you have one, to a location with a quest to complete. Quests ranged from collecting crystals, killing particular boss guys or guarding a specific point. One thing to keep in mind is that the game has no built-in multiplayer lobby or invite system, you’ve got to use steam’s friend list to invite your friends to play with you. That wouldn’t be so bad but you have to do it after every single contract you take on. It’s a game based around having four players; could we really not even implement that?
From what we experienced we could take a contract at a level of vector and it could return later after it refreshes at a higher Vector requirement. I should explain that when I say refreshing I mean that contracts are not there permanently. There is a pool to choose from and they change every few minutes, so if you don’t like the current choices you could wait around. It would be a better use of your time to just play one of the contracts and get some rewards at least. Speaking of rewards, lets talk a bit about Vector and what affects it.
Vector is your average score of your equipped weapon and two support items. Weapons affect your damage output while support items can give you benefits such as increased EXP, extra health or passive damage reduction from certain statuses. Weapons can also have a special perk that you can unlock by spending supplies to unlock, mostly I saw additional effects on attacks or status inducing. You occasionally find items at the end of missions but they are not guaranteed. Items also cannot be changed out once you start a contract, so anything you equip sticks with you. The way to increase your Vector is to buy weapons or support items from the store using the in-game earned credits, but the truth of the matter is you can get the exact same item you are currently using with just a higher vector number. I ran into a lot of the same items when attempting to raise my vector and it was kind of disheartening to see the limited loot pool.
Something major to keep in mind since we are talking about how equipped items stick with you once you start a contract is that every time you start a new contract you start over at level 1. Your level does not progress with you between games, in this sense it is more of a MOBA style game. Each level up you get to choose from two or three different abilities depending on the level you are at; at specific intervals you get to choose your “ultimate” ability which is a huge cooldown skill with either tons of damage or damage and utility. It makes for interesting replays in that you don’t do the exact same thing every contract.
As Killsquad progressed through different levels we came to appreciate just how flashy certain abilities used by heroes looked but at the same time were slightly disappointed by the lack of a certain sharpness to the world. I understand that the game wasn’t created with high-end machines in mind but the fact is that you’ve got to cater to both to a certain extent. With the maps being procedurally generated we never once replayed the same area even when the contract asked us to do the same thing. One amazing twist though is the environmental effects that we had to overcome such as electric minefields, random meteors and even a laser barrage. It made for even more spectacle in such an already flashy game when it came to skills. One area that I wish was done better is the sounds of Killsquad. Skills and attacks have plenty of oomph but there was very little in the way of music to help improve the immersion of the location.
Killsquad tries to do a bit of everything and succeeds at only a few. It does great at giving you different ways to replay the same contract without making it something you can breeze through before you memorized where everything was. It doesn’t do great at making it easy to play with friends or even explaining how you do that or pretty much everything else you have to do. There are also no valid reasons to do these contracts as there is no story element to them. Give me a story and maybe I’ll care about why I’m collecting these crystals, killing those dragon things or guarding this normal looking area. Killsquad released for early access July 16th on Steam for $25 with a console port planned down the line.
We’ll check this game out again when it officially releases, but for now it is pretty rough; even for early access. Maybe after another year of updates, patches, and polish this might turn into something worth considering. Time will tell…
